Life of George Washington The Christian death painted by Junius Brutus Stearns (Source: Library of Congress)
December 14 is a sad day at Mount Vernon. Or at least it was in 1799 when George Washington, the father of our country, died of an unknown illness, which came on quickly.
The beginning of the end for Washington came two days earlier when he went for a long horseback ride around his plantation in snowy, 30-degree weather. He awoke the next morning with a severe sore throat and the symptoms got progressively worse from there: hoarseness, cough, chills, difficulty breathing, difficulty swallowing, fever and loss of voice.
Last Flight of the Silver Stars
Last Flight of the Silver Stars
By Jim Bates
On a crisp, but CAVU, Friday morning in December the last two working Canadair Silver Stars in the United States conducted their final “official” flight before retirement. (The National Research Council Canada (NRC) still operates Canadair built T-33 C-FSKH for various flight test programs.) The flight, done to commemorate the Silver Star’s long careers with Boeing, departed Boeing Field on December 4, 2020, to make a formation fly-past of Paine Field before returning back to Boeing Field.
Boeing started operating the Canadian built CL-30 Silver Star in 1976, mostly for sensor and missile guidance testing, but more recently the aircraft were used as chase planes for airliner test-flights. The two T-33s which appear in the background of many flight test photos of the 767, 777, and 787, were later supplemented in flight test operations by two supersonic Northrop T-38 Talons. Unfortunately, al